Boot Trouble

I have a PC Chips mother board M811 V3.1 with a VIA KT266A Northbridge
and VT8235 Southbridge chipset. My processor is an AMD Athlon XP
2400+. I have two US Modular 1G 1024MB DDR-400Mhz PC 3200 memory
cards. Seagate 400G 7200 Ultra ATA/100 hard drive. PNY TNT 2M6432 PCI
video card. Windows XP SP2 home with all the latest update. I started
having trouble with the PC rebooting it's self or crashing before I
upgraded the memory and hard drive. I have had the problem with the
BIOS check sum error and other issues before I changed the memory. I
have stand offs behind the main board and the case. The whole PC is
custom built, not a box style system. I have gone back before and
just put in the origional mem, HD, video card and key board and still
have the problems. Sometimes it would come back with a BIOS check sum
error and errors like page fault in none paged area. I installed the
new memory and it work fine for a week and it stopped working right,
so I switched the memory back to 256MB DDR-333 Mhz PC2700 and it
still had troubles. I left it unplugged set the BIOS jumper to clear
CMOS, replaced the battery and left it alone. I then tried it again a
week later with a different HD and fresh copy of windows XP. It booted
fine worked fined boot after boot, so I reinstalled the old drive and
it worked fine as well. I then put my new Seagate HD into it and
everything was fine for a while that day. When I unhooked the Seagate
to install the old drive as the main boot drive to allow me to change
the setting allowing me access for backing up that old drive, when I
tried to reboot it, it wouldn't boot. I would get no video, or it
would start to boot and freeze while finding IDE devises. I unhooked
that drive, hooked up the Seagate and now it wont boot right either.
I reset the jumper to clear CMOS after it said BIOS check Sum error
and it booted to the BIOS screen, once I hit save and it rebooted, it
would again freeze or show that there was no video. I have even
swapped out the PCI Video card with a different one but that wouldn't
help either. Am I having a BIOS problem, a mother board problem or
processor problem or something else?

On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:38:45 GMT, lid (JTK13601) wrote:

I have a PC Chips mother board M811 V3.1 with a VIA KT266A Northbridge
and VT8235 Southbridge chipset. My processor is an AMD Athlon XP
2400+. I have two US Modular 1G 1024MB DDR-400Mhz PC 3200 memory
cards. Seagate 400G 7200 Ultra ATA/100 hard drive. PNY TNT 2M6432 PCI
video card. Windows XP SP2 home with all the latest update. I started
having trouble with the PC rebooting it's self or crashing before I
upgraded the memory and hard drive. I have had the problem with the
BIOS check sum error and other issues before I changed the memory. I
have stand offs behind the main board and the case. The whole PC is
custom built, not a box style system. I have gone back before and
just put in the origional mem, HD, video card and key board and still
have the problems. Sometimes it would come back with a BIOS check sum
error and errors like page fault in none paged area. I installed the
new memory and it work fine for a week and it stopped working right,
so I switched the memory back to 256MB DDR-333 Mhz PC2700 and it
still had troubles. I left it unplugged set the BIOS jumper to clear
CMOS, replaced the battery and left it alone. I then tried it again a
week later with a different HD and fresh copy of windows XP. It booted
fine worked fined boot after boot, so I reinstalled the old drive and
it worked fine as well. I then put my new Seagate HD into it and
everything was fine for a while that day. When I unhooked the Seagate
to install the old drive as the main boot drive to allow me to change
the setting allowing me access for backing up that old drive, when I
tried to reboot it, it wouldn't boot. I would get no video, or it
would start to boot and freeze while finding IDE devises. I unhooked
that drive, hooked up the Seagate and now it wont boot right either.
I reset the jumper to clear CMOS after it said BIOS check Sum error
and it booted to the BIOS screen, once I hit save and it rebooted, it
would again freeze or show that there was no video. I have even
swapped out the PCI Video card with a different one but that wouldn't
help either. Am I having a BIOS problem, a mother board problem or
processor problem or something else?

Motherboard or psu most likely. Examine the mainboard. See those
can-shaped things on it? Check all of them for bulges or leaking. If
you have bulges or leaking the board is likely done for unless you can
solder in new caps.

"Chris Hill" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 02:38:45 GMT, lid (JTK13601) wrote:

I have a PC Chips mother board M811 V3.1 with a VIA KT266A Northbridge
and VT8235 Southbridge chipset. My processor is an AMD Athlon XP
2400+. I have two US Modular 1G 1024MB DDR-400Mhz PC 3200 memory
cards. Seagate 400G 7200 Ultra ATA/100 hard drive. PNY TNT 2M6432 PCI
video card. Windows XP SP2 home with all the latest update. I started
having trouble with the PC rebooting it's self or crashing before I
upgraded the memory and hard drive. I have had the problem with the
BIOS check sum error and other issues before I changed the memory. I
have stand offs behind the main board and the case. The whole PC is
custom built, not a box style system. I have gone back before and
just put in the origional mem, HD, video card and key board and still
have the problems. Sometimes it would come back with a BIOS check sum
error and errors like page fault in none paged area. I installed the
new memory and it work fine for a week and it stopped working right,
so I switched the memory back to 256MB DDR-333 Mhz PC2700 and it
still had troubles. I left it unplugged set the BIOS jumper to clear
CMOS, replaced the battery and left it alone. I then tried it again a
week later with a different HD and fresh copy of windows XP. It booted
fine worked fined boot after boot, so I reinstalled the old drive and
it worked fine as well. I then put my new Seagate HD into it and
everything was fine for a while that day. When I unhooked the Seagate
to install the old drive as the main boot drive to allow me to change
the setting allowing me access for backing up that old drive, when I
tried to reboot it, it wouldn't boot. I would get no video, or it
would start to boot and freeze while finding IDE devises. I unhooked
that drive, hooked up the Seagate and now it wont boot right either.
I reset the jumper to clear CMOS after it said BIOS check Sum error
and it booted to the BIOS screen, once I hit save and it rebooted, it
would again freeze or show that there was no video. I have even
swapped out the PCI Video card with a different one but that wouldn't
help either. Am I having a BIOS problem, a mother board problem or
processor problem or something else?

Motherboard or psu most likely. Examine the mainboard. See those
can-shaped things on it? Check all of them for bulges or leaking. If
you have bulges or leaking the board is likely done for unless you can
solder in new caps.


Agreed. This mainboard is history. -Dave

I have replaced the battery and swapped out everything inside short of
the main board and processor and nothing works or it works when it
chooses.

"JTK13601" wrote in message
. ..
I have replaced the battery and swapped out everything inside short of
the main board and processor and nothing works or it works when it
chooses.

That`s nice to know. It must be the main board or the processor.
But, hang on, it works when it chooses.
So it can`t be that then.

I got my PC up and running for maybe 3 days straight with only limited
problems, related to software installs. Then the last day during the
night, it crashed and since then refuses to boot. Sometimes I get it
to send a video signal, sometimes it doesn't, last time I got it into
setup in the BIOS and it was blank, nothing was showing, no list
nothing. I even got a new AGP video card and replaced my PCI card
hoping that would help it out. Someone suggested my BIOS maybe
corrupt and I can't find OEM BIOS for my MB. PCChips doesn't have it,
the upgrade has been listed as not working with AGP video cards and
doesn't respond to any contact. Award/Phoenix BIOS sends you
elsewhere where you have to pay for any BIOS. I am thinking my only
hope is a new MB

On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 03:31:28 GMT, lid (JTK13601) wrote:

I got my PC up and running for maybe 3 days straight with only limited
problems, related to software installs. Then the last day during the
night, it crashed and since then refuses to boot. Sometimes I get it
to send a video signal, sometimes it doesn't, last time I got it into
setup in the BIOS and it was blank, nothing was showing, no list
nothing. I even got a new AGP video card and replaced my PCI card
hoping that would help it out. Someone suggested my BIOS maybe
corrupt and I can't find OEM BIOS for my MB. PCChips doesn't have it,
the upgrade has been listed as not working with AGP video cards and
doesn't respond to any contact. Award/Phoenix BIOS sends you
elsewhere where you have to pay for any BIOS. I am thinking my only
hope is a new MB
How old is this board? What cpu is on it and what psu are you using?

Mother board is about 2 or 3 years old, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, and it
has a Power Magic 550 Watt power supply. Both of the fans on the
power supply has been slowly going, I have had to manually lube them
to keep them spining and no noise. I just read on another forum I
have this problem listed on that I should check the power supply
rails for fluctuating voltage

"JTK13601" wrote in message
...
Mother board is about 2 or 3 years old, AMD Athlon XP 2400+, and it
has a Power Magic 550 Watt power supply. Both of the fans on the
power supply has been slowly going, I have had to manually lube them
to keep them spining and no noise. I just read on another forum I
have this problem listed on that I should check the power supply
rails for fluctuating voltage


Wow, is this a scary post. Power supplies fail. Cheap power supplies
(Power magic???) fail frequently. Cheap power supplies that fail often
destroy connected components. If you have even the slightest suspicion that
a power supply might be bad, replace it immediately.

Don't bother with a multimeter. Bad power supplies can test fine on a
multimeter, and it is a huge risk to leave an IFFY power supply in a system
even long enough to make basic voltage checks. If a power supply tests
"bad" on a multimeter, you probably would know that the power supply is bad
BEFORE you check it with the multimeter, so the multimeter would be
redundant. And again, bad power supplies can test fine on a multimeter. So
"good" voltages are not a guarantee that the power supply is good, and "bad"
voltages will usually be so obvious that you won't need to MEASURE
hem. -Dave